Pickens Portraits: Volume One Paperback – March 23, 2026

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge, where the Piedmont breaks against the mountains, there’s a county whose story has been told in fragments—a highway marker here, a cemetery headstone there, a fading newspaper clipping in somebody’s attic. Pickens Portraits: Volume One gathers those fragments and makes them whole.This is not a textbook. It’s a collection of stories—vivid, deeply researched, and written for anyone who believes that local history deserves the same narrative craft as any bestseller.Inside, you’ll discover:• How a farm-to-market road became the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway—and who made it happen• The Keowee-Toxaway Project: an engineering marvel that transformed the Upstate’s landscape and economy in a single generation• The 1929 tornado that carved through Six Mile and left scars a century hasn’t erased• Sunrise Cemetery’s quiet chronicle of Pickens’ most remarkable lives• Country doctors who delivered babies by lantern light and accepted chickens as payment• The civic clubs—Jaycees, Kiwanis, Lions, Masons—that once held small-town life together, and why they faded• The rise and fall of Pickens County’s hotel trade, from Table Rock to tourist court• How the mail got through—from horseback riders crossing mountain gaps to rural free delivery• Portraits of unforgettable local figures: Dr. Lloyd Batson, Browning Bryant, Rudy Hayes, Peggy Anthony, and moreDrawn from archival scrapbooks, original documents, family interviews, and sources that have never appeared in print, this book is local history with the texture and momentum of narrative nonfiction. Whether your people have been in Pickens County for seven generations or you just moved to the Upstate last year, these stories belong to you.From the author of Looking for Space: My Pickens Journey and co-author of nine books on U.S. submarine history. All proceeds are donated to the Ryan Hood Memorial Scholarship at Young Appalachian Musicians in Pickens.Volume One is just the beginning. Volume Two is already in the works. Read more